Article: Maarten Kamp

CIRCULAR CHALLENGES

TITEL Circularity is often simplified to reduce-reuse-recycle, but what are the challenges while looking at the big picture on planetary level?

Planetary boundaries and definitions

Huesemann & Huesemann define three indicators for circularity on planetary level: - All energy comes from renewable sources at or below renewable rates. - All materials come from renewable sources at or below renewable rates. - Waste can only be released at or below assimilation rate, without negative impacts for the ecosystem of biodiversity.

The aim of circularity is to keep impacts within planetary boundaries, and moreover avoid depletion of needed resources. We are currently far removed from that point as we overshoot particularly the safe boundaries for biodiversity loss, deforestation, nitrogen and phosphate depositions and global warming, causing substantial alteration of the Earth System.

“Rate” is the keyword in the Huesemann indicators. Overshooting is temporarily possible, but only at the cost of damage, destruction and depletion. Restoration is sometimes possible, but not all processes are reversible, or not in a linear manner. Then if this is our global compass, where do we meet problems, what are the circular challenges?

Challenge 1: Renewable energy and nonrenewable materials

One problem is that we are moving towards renewable energy, but in doing so we rely on nonrenewable materials, particularly a wide array of (rare) metals for solar, wind and batteries. Various reports signal that mining production needs to grow at unprecedented annual rates for 17 metals in the next 30 years to bring about the Paris energy transition, while this does not even take into account the metal use by other industries. This is also a geopolitical problem, as Europe has almost no relevant mining and refining capacity of its own.

Metal production is particularly damaging. The Environmental Cost Indicator shows that the “shadow costs” of, for example, one kilogram of aluminium or one kilogram of steel are roughly 1000 times and 100 times higher than those of one kilogram of concrete. The ECI is based on Life Cycle Analysis with 11 monetized environmental impact categories.

Figure 1 The Environmental Costs (or shadow costs) for common construction materials (image credit: TNO, 2018a), based on Life Cycle Analysis of 11 monetised environmental impacts.

Reuse and recycling can help to reduce the demand for virgin metals, but only in the long term, while we need the renewable energy transition now. Reuse and recycling do not allow volume growth, while the global demand is far exceeding the global supply. Substitution of rare materials in solar, wind and batteries would help, but without shifting to other materials that will quickly be depleted.

Challenge 2: Organic and economic growth

The Huesemann definition also brings another problem to light. At some point we will run out or exceed the production rates of non-renewables. For metals, concentrations get lower, so mining gets more costly and ever more damaging. Minerals seem abundant and harmless, but in Asia a “sand mafia” steals entire beaches and river banks to provide sand with the particular properties that are needed in concrete production. Identified fossil fuel reserves are finally available for another 50150 years, but we can use only a very small portion of them to avoid catastrophic global warming.

The only resources that allow ongoing volume growth are bio based materials. Their growth is infinite in the sense that the Earth and Sun combined can produce them forever, but it is not unlimited in terms of production rates. For example, it takes decades to grow trees into maturity. We are limited to the production capacity of sustainably managed forests that urgently need to grow. Materials such as bamboo, straw, flax, hemp, reed and mycelium have considerably shorter cycles, and can be implemented without such delay.

Not just time, but also space is a fundamentally limiting factor. The production of non-food organic materials is in competition with land claims for agriculture, built-up area and wild diverse nature. This is an important task for global spatial-temporal planning.

Challenge 3: Systemic changes and considerations

Technological innovation can play an important role in solving our problems. Although we need a systemic view, we are not in the advanced stage yet that technological solutions create no new and serious problems in different areas. Systemic thinking should also include an assessment of rebound effects, as efficiency gains due to innovation can actually lead to more consumption. Examples are careless use of energy efficient lighting, or buying bigger energy efficient cars (primary rebound effect); or spending money that was saved on basics now on luxuries such as travel and meat consumption (secondary rebound effect). It is never enough to modify one control and effective policies will have to oversee the whole dashboard.

In the end, much will depend on simultaneous social economic innovation, as the overshoot of various planetary boundaries and the scarcity of time, land, energy and materials are directly caused by the size of global consumption, which puts everything “under pressure”. The developed countries have a special responsibility here, the few rich have a much bigger footprint per capita and combined even bigger than the poor majority.

A circular economy will have to acknowledge ecological boundaries, and step away from the modern idea of infinite “growth”. “Doughnut economics” embodies this vision, whereas a more equal global distribution of capital and consumption is part of the global solution. A circular economy will also feature fair pricing of products and services. This creates a level playing field for sustainable solutions, that are often considered to be more expensive, but that holds only true when “shadow costs” are ignored and not paid for that mix will ecologically and economically change everything.

Hajo Schilderpoort

The author is lecturer of the elective Master course 7xc1m0 Circularity in the Built Environment, which is part of the TU/e wide Master Certificate Circular Design in the Built Environment.

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